Michigan Politics
Weaver Continues To Battle High Court ‘Gag Order’; Changes ‘Abusive Conduct’ by Republican Majority
By George Weeks

In October, I wrote that the long-simmering feud between Michigan Supreme Court Justice Betty Weaver and the four other Republicans on the seven-member bench "is beginning to erupt."

Last week, it burst forth with unprecedented fury when Weaver denounced the court's 4-3 order to impose what she called a "gag order" advancing "a policy toward greater secrecy and less accountability. I strongly believe that it is past time to end this trend and let sunlight into the Michigan Supreme Court."

The majority, according to an Associated Press account on another ruling Thursday, involving

flamboyant attorney Geoffrey Fieger, said Weaver's criticism was "rooted in personal resentment." In 2001, the majority declined to give her a second term as chief justice.

The initial dispute was a December 6 order approved by Chief Justice Cliff Taylor and Justices Maura Corrigan, Stephen Markman, and Robert Young prohibiting justices from disclosing any "correspondence, memoranda, and discussions" on cases before the court, even after they are resolved.

After Weaver's 14-page dissent on that order was released Thursday, the court issued its denial of Fieger's request to postpone disciplinary action against him for vulgar remarks about some judges while he appeals to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Weaver contends that the four justices should disqualify themselves on action against Fieger. The former judge of the Leelanau County Probate Court and the Michigan Court of Appeals argues that she should be able to publicly say why.

On January 17, the court plans a public hearing on its order "preserving the integrity and confidentiality of the Court's deliberative process and to reflect practices that have characterized the Michigan Supreme Court, and to the best of our knowledge every other appellate court within the United States, including the United States Supreme Court, since their inception."

The hearing also will address how to deal with a justice who "violates or threatens to violate" such an order. That's a bombshell.

Tom Farrell, who long ago covered the court for United Press International and later was the court's public information officer, said: "In the last 50 years or so, I don't think the court has ever been embroiled in anything like this."

Under a "God help this dysfunctional court" headline, Detroit Free Press columnist Brian Dickerson wrote last week that Michigan's justices "are locked in a blood feud that makes the sniping between Rosie O'Donnell and Donald Trump seem downright collegial."

Weaver resolutely refuses to talk to the press about the fray. But I'm told she bristled earlier this year when I referred to her as "battling Betty." Her understandable view, enforced by citations in her dissent, is that the conflict is a constitutional issue, not a personality spat. She wrote:

"Finding no 'gag rule' in the Michigan Constitution, statutes, case law, court rules, and canons

of judicial ethics, the majority of four has decided instead to legislate its own 'gag order.'" She said the four have "tried to erect an impermeable shield around their abusive conduct."

As for being court contrarian, she writes that "In matters of principle and legitimate public concern… the public does not expect a justice to 'go along to get along.'" She sees herself as a justice fighting against the court transforming itself "into a 'secret society' by making rules to protect themselves from public scrutiny and accountability."

(Several hours after Thursday release of the high court dueling documents in Lansing, Weaver repeated admonition about judges not "going along" when she spoke at the Benzie County courthouse at investiture of three-term Probate Judge Nancy Kida.)

In her dissent, Weaver said confidentiality of the court's deliberative process "does not extend to illegal, unethical, and improper conduct. Abuses of power and grossly unprofessional conduct are entirely unrelated to the substantive, frank, and vigorous debate and discussion of pending or impending adjudicated cases that a properly exercised judicial privilege should foster."

Battling Betty may bristle again, but the independent-minded justice is pushing what those of us outside those historically secret chambers might call Betty's Bombshell.

After their January hearing, the robed ones on the high court bench will have to sort out the legal and constitutional questions. But from where this scribe sits, anyone advocating the bright light of public scrutiny is to be applauded.

George Weeks retired this year after 22 years as political columnist for The Detroit News. His weekly Michigan Politics column is syndicated by Superior Features.